


cc-2224 (cody's) files: general kenobi (obi-wan)

by seraf, shiningjedi, TwoMenAndAGuava



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, M/M, Poetry, Self-Worth Issues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-12
Updated: 2018-03-12
Packaged: 2019-03-30 13:35:14
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,626
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13952679
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/seraf/pseuds/seraf, https://archiveofourown.org/users/shiningjedi/pseuds/shiningjedi, https://archiveofourown.org/users/TwoMenAndAGuava/pseuds/TwoMenAndAGuava
Summary: obi-wan loves him. he shouldn't. cody loves obi-wan. he shouldn't either.(does it matter?)





	cc-2224 (cody's) files: general kenobi (obi-wan)

1) cody wakes in the thick mud, his vision blurry and his hands shaking and a sharp pain in his chest. obi-wan is leaning over him, cradling him and almost weeping. obi-wan is bleeding. he shouldn’t be bleeding.

2) “I’m sorry I couldn’t protect you,” he says, his voice rasping and throat raw and deep guilt in his heart.

3) obi-wan shakes his head firmly, pain and a brief flash of anger (not at cody) in his eyes. “you are a person, and i love you.”

4) obi-wan whispers it into his neck, his spine, his ear, every last part of him that night, _you are a person, and_ i _love you, you are a person, and_ i _love you._

5) cody tries to dismiss as sweet-talk in his mind. it doesn't quite work, and for that he feels guilty.

6) neither of them acknowledge the one tear they see cody shed, the first few times obi-wan says that.

7) or the fact that he murmurs back _you're wrong, sir_ more than once.

8) obi-wan doesn't respond directly, just breathes "i love you" again and again as if trying to create neural route in cody's mind.

 

9) (he is, he is, he is, he is.)

 

10) cody can't stop the thoughts from swirling around and around in his head, the _what about everyone else_ , the _i can't do this_ , the _please don't love me_.

11) it takes two days before cody even tries to return the i _love you_ , and it gets caught on his throat, he chokes just at _i_ \- because he shouldn't, it's not his right, he is a soldier of the republic and nothing more.

 

12) (the next two days, obi-wan finds himself sleeping alone.)

 

13) it's all too easy to tell obi-wan he loves him. after all that's his secondary purpose, to love the republic and its citizens, and the jedi as the personification thereof are of course deserving of love. but he wonders, sometimes, how much of it is love and how much of it is conditioning and how much is _he treats my brothers like we're worth something_.

14) there's a - not even a day, and he wouldn't even call it as much as an hour - where he hates obi-wan, for making him think for a moment that he was worth more than this.

15) ( it makes the truth of how _little_ he is worth just hurt more ).

 

16) (obi-wan loves his clone commander. he does not love him selfishly, as an object of desire, as something to take pleasure in and from and with, but as a rock, as a presence, as somebody he will fight for and hold and comfort.)

17) (and for his commander, he pretends not to hear the things that he whispers at night.)

 

18) cody loves his general. he does not love him selfishly, because he has nothing and he is nothing so there is nothing to be selfish for, but as a bulwark, as a murmur in his mind, and somebody he will fight for and hold and comfort.

19) and for his general, he pretends to be asleep when obi-wan weeps into his chest.

20) he swallows the word _expendable_ over and over, says words like _plentiful_ and _useful_ instead, because _expendable_ hurts obi-wan, because he wants to protect his general from hurt, from the knowledge that expendable is all cody is.

 

21) they need each other like you need fire in a harsh winter, and cody tries his best not to think about what happens when summer comes.

22) he tries not to think about what happens if neither live to summer.

23) he tries not to think about what happens if only one lives to summer, too.

 

24) (and obi-wan, the negotiator, the wordsmith, the silver-tongued, can't say anything to that simple question, that sharp burning why, and instead he reaches out and holds cody close and tries to convey love with that, because you're worth it, because you're you and i'm me and there's nothing else that could have happened.)

 

25) he resolves to himself that obi-wan will. it's a fact, in his mind, that he might not make it - no clones ever really live that long, the number of survivors from the time of the first battle of geonosis has ticked down to single digits - and if one of them lives, he can make sure it's his general.

26) he _will_ make sure it's his general.

27) sometimes he thinks about dying. not suicide, not exactly, but just. being a little less careful in battle. because if his general had more time to get used to it, if his general could mourn and then keep fighting, then maybe it'll turn out alright.

 

28) (the time that cody dies makes obi-wan more and more aware of how the clones are treated; there can't be another longshot or charger, not after he sees the calm look of acceptance in cody's eyes when he says 'we're built to die, sir'.)

 

29) cody sees it, and it makes him uncomfortable.

30) not in the sense of, _what will happen to us_? but in the sense of, _what will happen to him_? if he carries on treating them more and more and more as _people_ , as reaffirming their worth, not just _his_ worth, again and again, what will he do to himself when they're all dead?

31) what will the republic do to him when they're all dead?

32) they die. so many of them die. gearshift and longshot and waxer and charger and crys die, and cody _knows_ that that's just what happens to clones, and he can move on, but he sees it break obi-wan, and hates himself, for making obi-wan think of them as _people._

 

33) (it's supposed to get easier, he thinks. it's supposed to get easier to watch them die.)

 

34) obi-wan doesn't stop.

 

35) (it doesn't get easier.)

 

36) cody can't bring himself to ask him to.

 

37) (obi-wan keeps being confronted by the harsh truth of it, like when he gets a nasty cut across his leg, and it's deep but not bad, he'll undeniably live, but cody is bleeding out, but medical attention and the last blood bag goes to him because he is important)

 

37 ) he's not sure whether it's because he can't bear to see the pain in obi-wan's face when he tells him, or that he can't bear to know that he's the one who caused it.

38 ) he caused the pain anyway. the general told him he was a person. That’s where it all started.

39) he tells obi-wan, one day, when he sees his general's head weighed down in grief after he checks the pulse of their pilot. _sir, you can't keep doing this. no offense, but it's what we were made to do. you have to stop thinking of us as people._

40) (maybe it'll hurt his general less if cody pushes him away now. if cody says things like expendable, like I hate you.)

41) obi-wan turns his face to look at him, and a single trail clears through the grime on his face. "cody, you are asking me to think a lie," he says, and cody shakes his head.

42) _i'm asking you to let yourself think the truth, sir. right now you're being torn apart by the lie_.

43) he doesn't say it, and again, he's not sure why.

 

44) (all cody says is please, and obi-wan tries, he does, because the look of distress on cody's face is too much, but the one time he tries to look at cody in his helmet and think of him as cc-2224, or just as a clone, bile raises in his mouth and he almost heaves off the side of the gunship.)

 

45) cody shuts himself down. well, tries to, anyway. he isn't cody. he's clone commander two two two four. and cc-2224 isn't a _person_ , and _can't_ love obi-wan kenobi, and obi-wan kenobi _doesn't_ love cc-2224.

 

46) (obi-wan kenobi doesn’t love cc-2224, because 22-2224 is not a person. obi-wan kenobi loves cody, and he loves him with the kind of love that could topple mountains.)

 

47) cody (cc-2224) loves obi-wan kenobi (loves his general).

48) cody loves obi-wan kenobi, even though he knows he shouldn’t.

49) is that what normal people have, the gentle, unthinking touches and the gentle smiles and the exasperated look one gives when the other rushes off into danger without thinking?

 

50) is this what normal people have?

51) is this how normal people _love_?

52) they can never be normal. cody knows this. but for the sake of both of them, he pretends.

53) normal isn’t a word that makes any sense to either.

 

 

[54-58: files not located - perhaps no records made?]

 

 

59) utapau is a mess, but one that they deal with, like always. the sinkholes are a problem, but not a large one. grievous is located. by all accounts, the war is going to end soon.

60) if the war ends, what happens to cody?

61) if the war ends, what happens to obi-wan?

62) if the war ends, what happens to _them_?

63) normal isn’t a word that makes any sense to either.

 

64) cody hands him back his lightsaber, thinks _i love you _, and he smiles.__

____

65) he is a person called cody, and he loves a person called obi-wan kenobi. rank is meaningless. legal status is meaningless. there is them, there is a war, and there is love.

____

 

____

 

____

66) the supreme chancellor of the galactic republic speaks, and cody once more sees the truth for what it is. there is no them, there is no love, and there is no longer war.

____

 

____

 

____

 

____

67 [addendum]: he doesn’t cry.

____


End file.
